Christy Mahon climbs the 13,950-foot Pacific Peak in April 2013, with Atlantic Peak and Quandary Peak in the background. The Aspen ski mountaineer joins her huband Ted and professional skier Chris Davenport in a mission to ski the state’s 100 highest peaks. (Courtesy of Ted Mahon)

Aspen ski mountaineers Chris Davenport, Ted Mahon and Christy Mahon on Wednesday are planning to climb and ski the remote Jagged Peak in southwestern Colorado, a feat that will carve their names into the most hallowed halls of U.S. ski mountaineering.

In the energy drink battle that rages at the X Games, Monster Energy emerged victorious in the 2015 ski and snowboard events.
Monster’s athletes harvested nine medals, including two golds by snowboarders Silje Nordenal and Chloe Kim, for 17 points, counting golds as three, silvers as two and bronze medals as one point.

Red Bull, which once sponsored the X Games before Monster took over last year, saw its athletes take in seven medals for 14 points, including two golds by snowboarder Mark McMorris and a slopestyle gold by skier Nick Goepper. Rockstar Energy’s skiers and snowboarders reaped five medals, including two golds by skiers Vincent Gagnier and Maddie Bowman.

In the national rankings, Americans cleaned up with 13 medals, including five golds. Canadians landed nine medals, five of which were gold. Japanese skiers and snowboarders took three medals. Ski and snowboard athletes from France, Switzerland, Sweden and Norway took home two medals for their home countries while New Zealand, Italy and Australia each harvested a medal.

The camera-wielding owners and athletes behind Crested Butte’s Matchstick Productions had been eyeing that line in Alaska’s Tordrillo Mountains for years.

Last winter, snow conditions were perfect and the crew put the line on the to-do list. Cody Townsend stepped up and dropped into the ridiculously narrow chasm, plummeting more than 2,000 vertical feet through a cliff-lined choke that seems too tight. The 31-year-old skier’s segment in MSP’s “Days of My Youth” is storming the internet, with more than a million views and Townsend’s debut on ESPN’s SportsCenter.

MSP co-founder Murray Wais was behind the camera in the helicopter hovering above the dark funnel of snow and rock. He had full trust in Townsend, but the line was sketchy. He worried about barely covered rocks in the gorge.

“If you hit those rocks, it would be all over,” Wais said. “No one else dropped into it. Just Cody. In all honesty, there was quite a bit of danger but it was still straight forward. If you just went for it, it would be all good. He just had to go straight.”

Wais wasn’t overwhelmed with the footage he captured from the heli. Then he watched the POV footage from Townsend’s helmet-mounted GoPro.
“We knew that was one of the most special POV shots ever captured, that’s for sure,” Wais said. “So unique, so fast, so gutsy.”Read more…

Although I have no intention of shopping for anything more than a cheeseburger and a cold beer this weekend, I understand that some other folks do. So it’s a shame that we didn’t get the images posted on our DPO website of several outdoor products reviewed in last Wednesday’s section. They were printed in the newspaper, but the Titan Rod Vault was the only image to make it online. Apologies.

Far be it for me to fall into the category of denier when it comes to climate change, but this wild and wintry month of November in the Colorado Rockies has me wondering if the phenomenon formerly known as global warming might actually be better for skiing as we know it. In the absence of a nanogram of scientific research, hear me out.

Let’s start by noting that for one of the few times in the past quarter century or so that ski resorts have been marketing Thanksgiving as a skiing holiday, their marketing teams actually have something to sink their teeth, and tips, into this season. Vail Mountain is looking at one its best openings ever, offering more than 1,300 acres of virtually wall-to-wall frontside skiing just five days into the season with legitimate potential to open a portion of the Back Bowls by Black Friday. Just over Tennessee Pass, little old Ski Cooper is opening 100 percent of its terrain more than two weeks ahead of schedule on what they’re cleverly calling White Friday (Nov. 28).Read more…

On his fourth attempt in September, Clark was unable to finish the largely trail-less route – which climbs and descends 90,000 vertical feet – in the arbitrarily (and cruely?) assigned time of 60 hours. His documentary reflects the near impossibility of the feat, which has been completed by fewer than a dozen athletes since mountaineer Jim Nolan conjured the route in 1999.

Mountaineer Ben Clark climbs La Plata Peak in August during his third attempt to finish the grueling Nolan’s 14 route in less than 60 hours. The route traverses 14, 14,000-foot peaks in about 100 miles. (Kendrick Callaway, Special to The Denver Post)

Featuring interviews with the world’s top ultrarunners – like superstar Anton Krupicka, whose Nolan’s 14 mission blew up in June after he reached only five of the peaks – and legend Blake Wood, the 47-minute film captures the grueling nature of the line. This season was exceptionally busy on Nolan’s 14, with at least 18 elite ultrarunners attempting the line, which many consider the burliest ultrarunning mountain line in the country if not the world.

The wilderness moved – and shook – to an urban setting earlier this month when a grassroots coalition called Sportsmen for Browns Canyon showcased its ongoing effort to preserve a portion of the Arkansas River as the nation’s next National Monument. The edgy multi-media display on the facade of the McNichols Building was a far cry from the peace and quiet of Browns Canyon, but it made the point.

“We just want to keep Browns Canyon the way it is – pristine and wild,” said Kyle Perkins of Trout Unlimited, coordinator of the group. “Our goal with the video event was to visually bring this amazing place to the heart of downtown Denver. We wanted urban residents to experience some of the grandeur and awe of Browns and to support our efforts to protect it for future generations.”Read more…

You could say there are no losers, but it sure doesn’t feel that way when the pictures start rolling in of big fish, trophy deer and flushing pheasants all at once. No matter what I did, it seemed like someone else was doing something better.
Of course, it’s not a competition. Maybe just a reminder that there are never enough hours in the day, days in the week, weeks on the vacation calendar, especially this time of year in Colorado. A weekend simply isn’t enough time to consume the smorgasbord of activities an outdoorsman faces during the fall harvest.
Here’s a three-day sample of images that came across my iPhone this weekend, all while I was doing the other:Read more…

Chris Davenport long ago moved beyond simply being a “professional skier.”

The Roaring Fork Valley athlete’s two-decade career has evolved from big mountain competitor to big hucking film star to pioneering mountaineer to innovative gear engineer. He’s a father to three kids; gifted rippers who are destined to carry the “Dav” name even deeper into the ski world. He guides clients into all places snowy, spreading his unwavering stoke for skiing and his steep-tech skills across the globe. He’s contributed to the design of big-mountain skis for Kastle, a lightweight outwear collection for Spyder and tour-friendly, hard-charging boots for Scarpa. And he’s one of North America’s first Red Bull athletes, shepherding the genre-defining beverage maker’s increasingly youthful crop of daredevils since the days when coffee was the sole energy drink. If ever there was an ultimate ambassador in today’s ski world, it is Davenport.

“If you want longevity, you have to clearly integrate yourself with the business,” he says in the first installment of Red Bull’s “Faces of Dav” series, which chronicles the 43-year-old professional life on skis. “That’s what going to take you to the next level.”

SALIDA – “It’s really not as hard as it looks,” says Monty Holmes, standing over a pocket canyon laced with 27,000 feet of cable. This is Colorado’s largest aerial adventure park, says Holmes, who goes by Captain Zipline.

Soon I’m tightrope walking 60 feet above the deck and stepping on swinging logs, my shadow an ant on the rocks below me. This is not ziplining. This takes actual skill.

Holmes spent almost a million dollars developing the aerial park, hiring Swiss engineers to design and suspend dozens of “elements” high above the ground.

“Building a zipline 10 years ago was a kindergarten class. This is a PhD curriculum,” said Holmes, whose park is certified by the 2,500-member Association for Challenge Course Technology.Read more…

The scratchy voice of President Franklin D. Roosevelt resonates as grainy black-and-white photos of the Hoover Dam fill the screen.

“This is an engineering victory of the first order – another great achievement of American resourcefulness, American skill and determination,” FDR said, dedicating “the greatest dam in the world” on a September afternoon in 1935.

So began America’s river-choking love affair with dams and an era that saw tens of thousands federal dams erected across the country. And so begins DamNation, the engaging documentary that urges a critical look at outdated dams that are throttling rivers, decimating emblematic salmon and doing more damage than good.

When the revered environmentalist and founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, and his river-restoration biologist pal Matt Stoecker first approached Colorado filmmakers Ben Knight and Travis Rummel about making a dam-removal movie, the duo balked.

Their Red Gold environmental documentary won awards for its critical look at the proposed Pebble Mine at the headwaters of southwest Alaska’s salmon-rich Kvichak and Nushagak rivers in Bristol Bay.
“But we didn’t know anything about dams,” Rummel said.

The Gravy pup has taken to skiing like a Lab to water. The Labradog mix was indefatigable on Monday at Berthoud Pass, pounding nearly 4,000 vertical of climbing and then burrowing and floating through a couple feet of blower pow. Not bad for a 10-month old.

After two months of restoration to repair damage from the September 2013 flood, Boulder Creek opened for paddling and floating on Friday, May 2.

On a warm day, crowds began returning the creek, riding bikes alongside and soaking bare feet in the current. A gaggle of river-lovers celebrated with a buoyant float down the probably-too-low creek. The new pedestrian bridges glinted in the sun. The stones lining the banks were freshly grouted. The whitewater playpark features and drops were freshly repaired.

American Grete Eliassen gets airborne on the third jump during her first run at the U.S. Grand Prix slope style finals at the Copper Mountain ski area Saturday, Dec. 21, 2013. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post)

“I don’t think you got this Joe,” said Grete Eliassen, a professional skier.

Joe White’s legs shake. Sweat beads on his brow. Slowly he pushes the 160-pound sled up the ramp.

“Don’t you doubt me Grete,” said the incomplete quadriplegic as he finishes his reps at the Spinal Cord Injury Recovery Project rehab center in north Denver.

White’s workout is part of the SCI Recovery Project’s program to promote health, fitness and potential recovery through intensive training. The rolling crew disabled athletes were joined on Monday by four professional athletes for a kickoff to the Wings for Life World Run. The unique run will start simultaneously on May 4 at 34 locations in 33 countries – including 4 am in Denver – with both elite racers and non-runners racing not toward a finish line but against a catcher-car that will begin chasing down runners 30 minutes after the start of the race.

The synchronized global run – created by energy drink maker Red Bull – could see champion ultramarathoners go more than 60 miles while average trotters could go 3 miles to 10 miles or more.

The pals offered the exhausted couple a ride back home to Leadville. They both had to work the next day. Luckily someone brought a couple bikes.

“We wanted to get home on our own power and we thought a bike fit the bill,” said Rohan, who with his wife dreamed up the first-ever ski of the 14 highest Sawatch Range peaks as a way to raise $14,000 for the Full Circle youth service outfit where he designs outdoor programs for Leadville teens.

Remember those eager turns in November? Flying down manmade ribbons of white, swerving through the giddy masses, pining for powder, endless terrain and no crowds?

That dreamy scenario is thriving up high. The resorts are open wall-to-wall. Many resorts are boasting their best coverage in years: Crested Butte, Monarch. Others are offering plentiful stashes of pow: Breckenridge, Loveland, Mary Jane, Steamboat, Beaver Creek.
And the slopes are as lonely as ever.

We jostle through packed highways and just-as-crowded icy groomers in November and December. We wade through oceans of spring breakers in January and February. Then, when snow reaches its deepest and crowds evaporate, everyone decides it’s time whack weeds and pedal pavement? All that energy wasted to get slopes ready for Thanksgiving turns and then all but two hills shut down when it gets perfect. It’s time for a paradigm shift in ski-time attitudes when the high-country singletrack is dry in November and buried under 15-plus feet of snow in April. Why not realize that skiing really doesn’t start until January but can thrive deep into May or even June?

Red Bull is developing the first-ever “double pipe” – a pair of 22-foot halfpipes positioned side by side – at Aspen Skiing’ s Buttermilk ski area. Riders will spin through both pipes in the first contest of its kind March 19-23.

What’s better than a 22-foot halfpipe?
Two halfpipes. Side by side. With rails, gaps and features atop the walls.

Red Bull, Aspen Skiing and Snow Park Technologies are teaming up to build an Olympic-caliber halfpipe alongside the X Games halfpipe for a first-ever double-pipe contest that will feature snowboarders spinning between both pipes.

“A ‘Double Pipe’? Are you kidding me? Two side-by-side halfpipes with transfers and options all over?? This is the kind of thing that our team at SPT has been dreaming about, and only a company like Red Bull can bring something like this to life,” said Chris Gunnarson, the founder of Snow Park Technologies, the renowned outfit that builds the world’s top snowparks and pipes. “It’s one thing to design this concept on a computer, but the build plan for something this immense already has our heads spinning. It’s so rad to see a project like Red Bull Double Pipe break the mold with such a super progressive event on this scale.”

The invitation-only event – scheduled for March 19-23 – will host top riders in what will be the largest halfpipe feature ever built. Judges will rank the riders on style, creativity and use of the course, just like any halfpipe contest. A list of riders is expected soon at www.redbull.com/doublepipe.

Paul Brenner of Unequal Technologies shows the Kevlar-reinforced padding used by many X Games snowmobile athletes per new requirements for added protection and safety. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz / The Denver Post.)

A group of four snowboarders has sued Utah’s Alta ski area to overturn the resort’s longstanding ban on snowboarding.

The Wasatch Equality group on Wednesday filed the 26-page lawsuit in Utah’s U.S. District Court, targeting both Alta and the Forest Service, arguing the prohibition of snowboarders is based on prejudice against the single-plankers and violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

U.S. Snowboarding’s leading slopestyle snowboarder Chas Guldemond practices last week at the Breckenridge Grand Prix, where a blizzard cancelled snowboard slopestyle and halfpipe events. The contests will be held this week at California’s Mammoth Mountain. (Photo by Ezra Shaw, Getty Images

U.S. halfpipe and slopestyle snowboarders have a huge week ahead of them. They will compete in three Olympic qualifying contests at California’s Mammoth Mountain over four days this weekend as they fight to make the Olympic teams.